New to wireless, frustrated.

[KilgoreTrout-]

I've recently moved into a new house where the internet was already set-up before I arrived. We have comcast cable with a Belkin F6D4230-4 v2 (01) wireless router, and I have a USB wireless G/N 150mbps receiver (Not sure of the brand, bought it hastily at best buy when I moved in and had no internet). This is my first experience with wireless and it's been absolutely terrible; I frequently game and most of the time find myself with packet loss and high latency, buffering divx will slow to a crawl, and even just general internet surfing can become a huge pain in the ass every so often.

My questions: Is this to be expected with wireless? Should I upgrade my wireless receiver/router/both? Can I ever expect good, constant internet speeds with a wireless setup or should I just try to find some way to use wired?

Possibly useful information: I have three other roommates that connect to the router who may occasionally use torrents and I'm probably about 10 feet or less away from the router with two walls separating it from my computer. Thanks for any help you give.

 

[jlazzaro]

read the sticky, http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=264338

depends on your environment. all in all, wireless and stability do not go together. if you want a worry-free connection, wired is your only solution.

 

[KilgoreTrout-]

Oh yeah I did read it beforehand sorry, I'm on channel 11 (Worked best out of the three), broadcasting the SSID and can't find any real interference.

Edit: I've heard that having a router that can run DD-WRT really makes a difference, especially with torrents. Is this true or exaggerated?

 

[RadiclDreamer]

Drop the usb wireless device, every single one ive ever used was utter crap. Get a good pci, or get a wireless bridge if you have to. Also, get rid of the torrents, they are raping your router.

 

[Tsavo]

Oh yeah I did read it beforehand sorry, I'm on channel 11 (Worked best out of the three), broadcasting the SSID and can't find any real interference.

Edit: I've heard that having a router that can run DD-WRT really makes a difference, especially with torrents. Is this true or exaggerated?

Depends on the device. Torrents used to hammer the snot out of the bundled Actiontec router...my Buffalo WHRHPG300 with DD-WRT doesn't break a sweat.

DD-WRT itself is buggy though.

 

[KilgoreTrout-]

Drop the usb wireless device, every single one ive ever used was utter crap. Get a good pci, or get a wireless bridge if you have to. Also, get rid of the torrents, they are raping your router.

Thanks for the info. I guess my best course of action will be to upgrade my wireless adapter and see if that works before I upgrade my router. I found this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16833166060 and I liked the price/antenna. I assume that 150mbps is fine because I can't imagine my router putting out speeds greater than that.

Will this work or should I go with another adapter? Also, getting rid of all torrenting on the network is probably not viable =/.

Edit: Do I need a special type of adapter that is compatible with DD-WRT just in case I decide to go in that direction later?